Monthly Archives: August 2018

Sermon Outline – OT – NIV

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“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, …” 1 Corinthians 1:18

“‘Even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen.

Isaiah 1:15-17

Introduction:

Your hands are full of blood;

  1. wash and make yourselves clean.
  2. Take your evil deeds out of my sight!
  3. Stop doing wrong,
  4. learn to do right!
  5. Seek justice,
  6. encourage the oppressed.
  7. Defend the cause of the fatherless,
  8. plead the case of the widow.'”

End:

“‘STOP DOING WRONG, …'”- Isaiah 1:16

ACTION

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The message now is: ACTION!

“Because these days, action is everything,” it says today in a column in our local paper, The Northland Age.

A long time ago I read in the Bible about the two builders, the wise builder and the foolish builder. In Matthew 7:24 the Lord Jesus Christ says: “‘Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.'” Read also in Matthew 7:26 what the Lord says about the foolish builder.

Missionaries in action in Thailand.

Picture / Alan Collingwood

I dare say that I have read those words of the Lord Jesus Christ many times and I am reading them again now.

William and Catherine Booth had a daughter called Evangeline and she said that she saw Christianity in action and that her parents did not need to talk about it. That brings to memory what someone sent me quite some time ago: “Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.”

In the book “Through Blood and Fire” by Trevor Yaxley I am told that William Booth encouraged his new converts “to hear” and “to do.”

What are now exactly the words of the Lord Jesus Christ? What are His commands?

“The Greatest Words Ever Spoken,”  is a book written by Steven K. Scott, and on the front cover it says, “Over 1,900 statements of Jesus organized under more than 200 topics.” (The cost of the book is US 24.99. I received it as a Give Away.)

Turning to the commands of the Lord Jesus Christ in the book, I read:

John 13:34-35: “Love one another.”

John 14:23: “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.”

John 15:9-14: “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love,”

John 15:17: “This is my command: Love each other.”

Matthew 5:19: “Anyone who breaks one of the least  of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven, …”

Let us be obedient to the commands of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I don’ know if you are familiar with the “Educator’s Dispatch.” The Educator’s Dispatch has five steps, namely looking, seeing, understanding, learning and acting. The Dispatch is ending with: “But to act on what you learn, is all that really matters, isn’t it?

I don’t know what the message is for you at the present time. But the message for me is: ACTION! First Peter 1:13 says:

“THEREFORE, PREPARE YOUR MINDS FOR ACTION.”